Google Maps Adds Built-In URL Shortening

Sending someone a Google Maps URL can be a pain, because they tend to be very long. To remedy this, Google has integrated their previously mentioned goo.gl URL shortening service into Google Maps, so you can shorten links right from the map.

The feature is still in Google Labs, so you'll need to turn it on by clicking the green flask in the top right corner of the Maps page and enabling the "Short URL" feature. After refreshing the page, clicking on the "link" button will no longer give you a mile-long URL, but a concise link that you can paste into Twitter or send in an email. It does disable the embedding feature, but if you don't tend to use that anyway, it's a pretty handy little feature for figuring out those last few summer vacations.